I drunk what:I see Ishkur is in the thread and will probably hang around and badger people. I've prepared a disclaimer for these occasions:

If I were a troll and I saw that someone had pre-prepared a two page manifesto denouncing and analyzing my trolling on the off chance that they encountered a thread that I was in, I'd cum in my farking pants.

Uncle Tractor:cegorach: Came here to see 'Atheists' displaying an utter lack of understanding of how the scientific method works

For instance ...?

and engaging in hilariously hypocritical irrational justifications of their belief systems, leaving satisfied.

"Atheism is a religion?" Please.

And yes, Dawkins is a douchebag channeling his personal issues into ideological fodder.

People keep claiming that Dawkins is militant, aggressive, or in your case, a douchebag. Never really seen any justification of this. Must be one of those truisms that Fox keep repeating over and over until their viewers believe them. His personal issues is being fed up with all the bullshiat that comes with religion.

That must mean that your militant douchiness is near indistinguishable from Dawkin's militant douchiness, relatively speaking, and moving along the same vector, duckily speaking.

Why is Dawkins such a dick? He probably had an experience something like mine when as an undergrad, astounded daily by what I was learning in biology and specifically in evolution class, was set upon by fundamentalists when I brought some books to work one evening. I was preparing a report on the role of reproductive efficiency as the driving force behind the extinction of marsupials by mammals. Once spotted I was targeted for conversion by some of the dimmest humans I have ever encountered.

Across the street from the hospital where I worked was the North Central Bible College, on whose campus around the same time Jim Baker met Tammy Faye LaValley, for which we can all give thanks.

The alarm was sounded, and a phalanx of bible thumpers was dispatched.

Hoardes of nitwit country kids took it upon themselves to save my soul, and, happily, failed. Ever since I have nurtured a revulsion at the tactics of the mouth breathing class of American christer.

I try to avoid mocking religious people, but I freely and openly indulge in mocking absurd religious beliefs. Merely believing that one or more gods exist doesn't qualify as absurd for me - that's reserved for physical or metaphysical nonsense, such as "the earth is 6000 years old", or "a ritual transforms the 'substance' of bread and wine into the flesh and blood of an incarnate deity, where 'substance' is defined as something completely intangible".

Unfortunately for everyone involved, the distinction between mocking a belief and mocking the people who hold that belief is typically lost on the people holding the belief, since those people have made that belief part of their personal identity. So being scrupulous about that distinction does nothing but foster a personal sense of self-righteousness, really.

They're not even comparable. Religion is a body of beliefs. Science is a process for understanding the natural world. One is a thing, the other is an activity>. It would be like comparing apples to eating.

Religion just doesn't like it when Science investigates its assertions, but that's hardly Science's fault. Science investigates everything -- that's what it does. It is not dogma, it is a methodology.

Science is a noun, not a verb.

You should drop by Los Alamos sometime. We science everything around here. We science the hell out of it.

radarlove:While my initial post may have been intentionally and trollishly vague, I assure you that assholishness was completely my point. The fact of the matter is that that is ALL that you people EVER argue about, regardless of the topic. Religion, vegetarianism, the fiscal cliff, gun control, dog ownership, food allergies, circumcision- it doesn't matter. Every single argument any of you people get into can be boiled down to who you think is the bigger asshole. In this particular argument it isn't about Dawkins vs Higgs (and why would you think that I would believe Peter Higgs to be religious, especially considering the content of TFA?), but rather the religious (including Atheists) vs. the non-religious (including theists).

And guess what? Same as always, they're both equally assholish. Every single one of us is an asshole of equal proportion and gape, including you and I.

Arguing over who is the bigger one in any situation is not only the height of idiocy, but the height of blind childishness.

But you're right, I should just bow out of the thread and not engage in what is surely to become an argument.

I'm okay with being honest with myself and admitting that I'm an asshole- but I'm not okay with making myself a farking idiot.

If people didn't argue endlessly over things that cannot be definitively settled, Fark would probably cease to exist.

Slaxl:The funny thing is in the religion debate Peter Higgs is going to get extra weight added to his views because the 'god' particle was his and discovered, which can easily be manipulated by journalists who misrepresent science to suggest he has proof of god.

Yet Hawking was right about black holes and Hawking radiation. And black holes will eventually gobble up everything, including Higg's boson. So inevitably, Hawking wins.